Six survivors found in hotel hit by avalanche in Italy

Carrie Doyle | January 21, 2017, 0:31

Six survivors found in hotel hit by avalanche in Italy

Firefighters rescue a survivor from Hotel Rigopiano.

"They can give us a series of indications to help with our intervention plan, information to understand what happened and help direct the search", she said. The Pescara prefect later came to meet with relatives to soothe frustrations.

Two people escaped the devastation at the Hotel Rigopiano, in the mountains of the Gran Sasso range, and called for help - but it took hours for responders to arrive to the remote zone.

Lacchetta, the Farindola mayor, said the hotel had 24 guests, four of them children, and 12 employees onsite at the time of the avalanche.

His father, Giampiero Parete, had sounded the alarm about the avalanche, begging his boss to rally rescue crews.

"He calls me and says 'Help me, an avalanche has hit and the hotel isn't there anymore".

"My wife told me she had a headache so I went to the vehicle to get some pills for her, Mr Parete said". She and son Gianfilippo, 8, were safely extracted from the snow-covered debris on Friday.

Next to emerge was the boy's mother, Adriana Vranceanu, 43, wearing red snow trousers and appearing alert as she told rescuers that her 6-year-old daughter, Ludovica, was still trapped inside.

The hotel buried by an avalanche in Italy is just one of several rescues underway in an area that has been pummeled by more than a meter (three feet) of snow in recent days  storms that have knocked out power and phone lines and blocked roads, isolating towns and hamlets.

For the heavy snowfall, Curcio said "we try to tell people to stay in their own homes, if they are secure, obviously".

A first group of between six or eight survivors were located by rescuers earlier Friday.

They were apparently discovered in the kitchen area of the Hotel Rigopiano. But he said, "Other people have responded to our signals". Troublingly, one of the survivors, Quintino Marcella, contacted authorities immediately after the avalanche had struck-but they refused to believe him. Local public broadcaster RAI reported that two bodies were found but have not yet been removed.

The discovery of survivors has given new energy to the search and rescue teams, who are battling freezing conditions and failing light as they work to uncover the second spot where people have been found. "The civil protection agency is managing an unprecedented emergency". At least 30 people are missing there.

Two young girls were among eight survivors found yesterday in the ruins of an Italian hotel buried by an avalanche two days earlier, police said. The first rescue teams arrived on skis; the next wave, by helicopter.

Four of the guests were children, the town mayor said. Those inside the hotel were trapped by 17 feet of snow as well as by the rubble, the AP reports.

Authorities originally said only six survived, but have since revised the number, said BBC News.

The 300-metre wide snow slide uprooted trees and wiped out parts of the four-storey hotel, trapping dozens of people.

Rescuer Lorenzo Gagliardi told SKY TG24 that "we are hoping that the ceiling collapsed partially in some places and that someone remained underneath". Workers have been clearing a seven-kilometre road to bring in heavier equipment, but it can handle only one-way traffic.

Speaking to ANSA on Thursday, Abruzzo Alpine rescuer Antonio Crocetta said "there are many dead".

A photo taken from a video provided by Italy's Finance Police shows the snow inside the Hotel Rigopiano in Farindola, central Italy, after it was hit by an avalanche January 19, 2017.

There they found a auto with its engine running with survivors Giampiero Parete and Fabio Salzetta inside. "Combine that with continued earthquakes in the central mountains; major avalanche risk", Bowen tweeted Thursday.

The operation has also been hampered by fears of triggering new avalanches and building collapses onto possible survivors trapped in the rubble.